MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION
Learning as Problem Design
Versus Problem Solving: Making
the Connection Between
Cognitive Neuroscience Research
and Educational Practice
Jason L. Ablin1
ABSTRACTHow can current ndings in neuroscience help
educators identify particular cognitive strengths in students?
In this commentary on Immordino-Yangs research regarding
Nico and Brooke, I make 3 primary assertions: (a) the cognitive
science community needs to develop an accessible language
and mode of communicating applicable research to educators,
(b) educators need proper professional development in order
to understand and relate current research ndings to practice
in the classroom, and (c) the specic research on Nico and
Brooke clearly suggests that educators need to rethink the
classroom as a place not of problem solving but rather problem
design in order to further understand and use the cognitive
strengths of each individual student.
For educators, there is still an open question as to how to
effectively apply the research being conducted in the rapidly
unfolding elds of cognitive neuroscience and developmental
psychology to educational practice. How can educators best
use such research in order to improve standard notions of
classroom design? The assessment of the research on Nico
and Brooke (Immordino-Yang, 2007) provides a good rst
example of generalizable neuropsychological principles from
case studies that can be translated into practical application
by educators. Specically, through the way in which Nico
and Brooke develop essential skills, educators can begin to
1
Head of School, Milken Community High School
Address correspondence to Jason L. Ablin, Head of School Milken
Curriculum and Integration, Milken Community High School, 15800
Zeldins Way, Los Angeles, CA 90035; e-mail: jablin@milkenschool.org
2008 the Author
52 Journal Compilation 2008 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
see a shift from a classroom as a place of problem solving to
one of active problem design. In using the research on Nico
and Brooke in this manner, neuroscientic research receives
practical grounded application in the classroom. Emerging
from Immordino-Yangs research, this commentary addresses
three critical areas: the neuroscientic communitys approach
to communicating results to educators, the necessity for pro-
fessional development for educators, and how this particular
research strongly suggests that classrooms should be thought
of as places of problem design rather than the more traditional
notion of problem solving.
COMMUNICATING AND USING RESEARCH
RESULTS
The rst essential question raised by the research results
regarding Nico and Brooke is, how can researchers best
present their work to facilitate connections to education?
Immordino-Yangs article makes several steps toward this
goal. First, she directly and clearly relates the results of the
research to principles of learning and describes Nico and
Brooke as learners. Second, she applies the developmental
lens of an educator (Immordino-Yang, 2007), drawing appli-
cable conclusions for education as the research unfolds and
providing a much needed model for articulating principles
that then can be extracted for application in the classroom.
Third and related, the essay creates a dialogue, developing
trust between researcher and educator. The assumption
throughout the writing is that the information provided by
the study is accessible and applicable to all educators who
Volume 2Number 2
 Jason L. Ablin
might put their eyes to it, not just those with advanced
knowledge of neuroscience and cognitive science.
As Immordino-Yang crafts this highly effective approach
to communicating her research results to professionals in
the educational community, the next question becomes ines-
capable: What kind of background and professional train-
ing do educators need in order to draw valuable conclusions
from research? Given the rapid and extraordinary ndings in
neuro- and cognitive sciences, focused professional develop-
ment is essential (Fischer et al., 2007). We need an approach
that both assumes that educators are intelligent enough and
have the desire to seek solutions toward improved student
learning and puts the proper responsibility in the lap of edu-
cators to become better students of the brain and current
neuroscientic research (Pickering & Howard-Jones, 2007).
Although graduate education programs and school in-service
programs often expose and train teachers in theories of educa-
tion, such as constructivism, the reading of original research
and the drawing out of working principles from areas directly
relevant to educational practice need to be modeled for teach-
ers and educational leaders. It is here where the neurosci-
entic community can play a direct role with professional
development. With such training from neuroscientists, edu-
cators could improve their practice by drawing from general
principles, and in turn could provide vital information and
raise essential questions for neuroscience to pursue, based
on insights from observations of their students. This would
create an essential network or loop of exchange between the
educational and the scientic spheres, beneting both practi-
tioners and researchers.
With the research of Immordino-Yang and my own
background in cognitive neuroscience and developmental
psychology, I was able, as an educator, to identify the gener-
alizable principles that would allow me to apply what I had
learned from Nico and Brooke to a broader, more typical stu-
dent population. As an educator always looking for ways that
the classroom can become a more effective learning environ-
ment, one implication of the study of Nico and Brooke is that
the classroom should actively engage students with prob-
lem design, rather than with simply solving problems as the
teacher has conceived them.
PROBLEM DESIGN VERSUS PROBLEM SOLVING
What makes the portrayal of Nico and Brookes cognitive
development so valuable is that they are both portrayed as
shapers (constructors) of problems. In these boys, problem-
solving skills emerge from a reinterpretation of existing prob-
lems into new problems that suit their individual strengths.
This implies that students are using various cognitive and
emotional approaches, shaping problems in very individualis-
tic ways to solve what appears on the surface to be the same
Volume 2Number 2
problem for everyone. Moreover, it suggests that if a student
is constantly asked to problem solve solely based on sets con-
structed from the particular perspective or idiosyncratic
strengths of the instructor, the student might experience
nothing but frustrations and difculties by only attempting
to perceive problems as the teacher intended. The result is
bound to be confusion on the part of the student as to what
actually constitutes a problem and why, as well as on the part
of the instructor who is unable to piece together the students
lack of clarity.
As many of the constructionist theorists have outlined
(Piaget, 1937/1954; Vygotsky, 1978), although the ability of
students to problem solve is essential, solutions are irrele-
vant if the problem is somehow unintelligible or unobtaina-
ble on the part of the learner. That is, dening the classroom
solely on the neuropsychological strengths of the instructor
makes for a narrow place. Instead, this research suggests
that there may be value in reframing lessons so that stu-
dents are actually engaged in problem construction and
design. Under the modeling and guidance of teachers, stu-
dents will frame questions, considerations, and principles
inside of contexts and narratives, which give the learning
culturally and individually relevant, associative, symbolic,
or numerate meanings (Fischer & Immordino-Yang, 2002;
Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). Furthermore, teach-
ers who engage their students in problem design will have
the opportunity to observe individual students cognitive
emotional proles to facilitate greater student awareness of
their own learning.
A simple example of this shift in emphasis can be found in
game construction, a common assessment practice used par-
ticularly in middle school classrooms and used extensively
in Design-Based Learning programs (Nelson, 1984; Nelson
& Sundt, 1993). The construction of a game becomes a form
of assessment, where students show a clear understanding of
principles applied to a board or logic game. Excellent models
of this assessment practice include clearly written game rules,
which help students with functional literacy skills as well.
The essential question that students need to answer would
be, how does the game design express not only the principle
being taught but also an approach to the problem that needs
a solution? The student-designed game would only become
winnable if the students playing know how to use the prin-
ciple taught to the set of problems within the game designed.
The game then becomes not only a process of discovery for
the students playing but also a window into the cognitive
processes of the game designer. Through such a process,
teachers would invariably nd a variety of underrecognized
and underused strengths in how students approach concepts
and principles.
This shift in lesson planning and assessment practice
should prove fairly straightforward. Teachers already have
a strong grounding in the practices of problem design
53
 Learning as Problem Design Versus Problem Solving
because, ultimately, this is exactly what they do in putting
together everything from lesson plans to long-term projects
to assessments. It is telling that educators will often express
that their own learning is never more enhanced than when
they must construct the ideas and concepts for their stu-
dents, and it is this process that creates the passion that
makes education such an exciting and stimulating eld. The
irony, however, is that teachers are not necessarily apply-
ing the same principles to student learning. Incorporating
problem design suggests that teachers need to be explicit
with students that a major goal of the lesson is to learn how
to become aware of their own problem-solving strategies in
order to be self-directed learners. Teachers would need to
model the very techniques that they use to create dynamic
learning environments, allowing students to practice these
techniques and then eventually creating many of their own
practices as the learning year progresses. In a problem
design classroom, teachers and students become, as Adler
suggests, cooperative artists (Adler, 1988), as students
become more aware of their individual strengths in con-
structing problems.
The research regarding Nico and Brooke allows educators
to imagine that through thoughtful processes of educational
practice, they can identify unique strengths within each indi-
vidual learner. With proper teacher training coupled with
approaches to communicating research results, as practiced
by Immordino-Yang, the classroom then becomes a place
where each students mind and spirit can nd his or her
unique perspective on constructing knowledge. With stu-
dents directing the construction of problems, the classroom
becomes an exciting opportunity for students not only to
54
acquire general knowledge but to acquire invaluable insights
into how they learn best as well.
REFERENCES
Adler, M. (1988). Teaching, learning and their counterfeits. In G. Van
Doren (Ed.), Reforming education: The opening of the American mind
(pp. 167175). New York: Macmillan.
Fischer, K. W., Daniel, D., Immordino-Yang, M. H., Stern, E., Battro,
A., & Koizumi, H.. (2007). Why Mind, Brain and Education? Why
now? Mind, Brain, and Education, 1, 12.
Fischer, K. W., & Immordino-Yang, M. H. (2002). Cognitive develop-
ment and education: From dynamic general structure to specic
learning and teaching. In E. Lagemann (Ed.), Traditions of scholar-
ship in education (pp. 255). Chicago: Spencer Foundation.
Immordino-Yang, M. H. (2007). A tale of two cases: Lessons for edu-
cation from the study of two boys living with half their brains.
Mind, Brain, and Education, 1, 6683.
Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore
we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to
education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1, 310.
Nelson, D. (1984). Transformations: Process and theory. Santa Monica,
CA: Center for City Building Education Programs.
Nelson, D., & Sundt, J. (1993). Changing the architecture of teachers
minds. Childrens Environments, 10, 159169.
Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child (M. Cook, Trans.).
New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1937).
Pickering, S. J., & Howard-Jones, J. (2007). Educators view on the role
of neuroscience in education: Findings from a study of UK and
international perspectives. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1, 109113.
Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychologi-
cal processes (14th ed., M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, &
E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Volume 2Number 2